Networks and Frames in Pipeline ResistanceMilan Ilnyckyj

PhD student, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

May 28, 2017

Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) Conference 2017

Abstract

Extensive media coverage has been devoted to the proposed Keystone XL andNorthern Gateway pipelines. Analysis of this coverage allows for analysis of pro- andanti-pipeline frames employed to try to sway public opinion and the choices of decisionmakers. It also provides a starting point for a network analysis of the organizationsand individuals involved in pipeline resistance.

1 Introduction and contextParticularly since 2011, pipelines originating from Canada’s bitumen sands have received

focused attention from climate change activists in the United States and Canada. Anti-pipeline campaigns reveal how networks of brokers and local campaigners collaborate, whiledisagreements about objectives and strategy remain prominent among environmentalistsand climate change activists. Extensive media coverage of these campaigns highlights howframing is a central element of contention: whether pipelines are primarily interpreted interms of trade and economic output, a threat to waterways or indigenous rights, or in termsof a finite global carbon budget and a corresponding need to transition to low-carbon formsof energy.

These pipelines illustrate the turbulent politics of energy in North America.1,2 The Tran-sCanada Keystone XL (KXL) project was proposed in 2008. The pipeline was a rallyingpoint for Canadian and U.S. climate change activists, with high-profile protest actions in-cluding mass civil disobedience outside the White House in summer 2011, leading to 1,253arrests.3 In November 2011, the Obama administration announced that they would delay adecision on whether to approve the pipeline until after the 2012 election.4 Obama eventuallyrejected the pipeline in 2015, saying: “if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth frombecoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have tokeep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pol-lution into the sky”.5,6 This led to a threatened lawsuit from the pipeline proponents.7 Afterhis surprise election in November 2016, Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandumin January 2017 to expedite the environmental review process for a reincarnated KXL.8 Themotivations and strategies of contention against KXL discussed below remain in place andcontinue to create some risk that the project will not be completed. The Enbridge Northern

1Many of the dynamics at work with KXL and NGP can be seen in resistance to other pipelines trans-porting bitumen sands oil, including the proposed TransCanada Energy East pipeline, Enbridge’s Line 9conversion and reversal, and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline. This is also true for pipelinesintended to transport other unconventional oil, including the Dakota Access Pipeline.

2See: Campbell, ‘Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids’: Why Standing Rock is about much morethan oil.

3Meisel and Russell, Case Study: Tar Sands Action.4Broder and Frosch, U.S. Delays Decision on Pipeline Until After Election.5Obama, Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline.6See also: The Economist, Keystone flops.7Lou, TransCanada’s $15 billion U.S. Keystone XL NAFTA suit suspended.8The Economist, Donald Trump backs two big oil pipelines.

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Gateway pipeline (NGP) — proposed in 2006 — was approved by Stephen Harper’s cabi-net in 2014 (subject to 209 conditions imposed by the National Energy Board joint reviewpanel), leading to a Federal Court of Appeal challenge from ForestEthics Advocacy, the Liv-ing Oceans Society, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and BC Nature.9,10,11,12,13 In2012, Canada’s federal government substantially cut back federal oversight over projects likepipelines, including reduced fishery protections and giving cabinet the final say over energyprojects.14 In a non-binding plebiscite of Kitimat residents in April 2014, 58.4% opposed thepipeline compared with 41.6% in favour.15 In January 2016, the B.C. Supreme Court foundthat the B.C. government had breached its duty to consult with First Nations in approvingthe project.16 In June 2016, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the pipeline’s approvalon the basis of “brief, hurried and inadequate” First Nations consultation.17 In November2016, B.C. premier Christy Clark said she would only support the NGP and Kinder Morganproposals subject to five provisions: regulatory approvals, “world-leading” marine- and land-spill response, indigenous participation, and “a fair share of benefits for British Columbia”.18

Referring to a section of British Columbia’s temperate rainforest which the pipeline wouldcross, Justin Trudeau asserted that “the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline”while he was campaigning.19 The NGP was killed by Justin Trudeau in 2016, and may bepermanently blocked by a tanker ban off the north coast of BC.20,21 At root, the debateabout both pipelines speaks to the question of what sort of energy infrastructure ought to bedeveloped in North America and whether continued expansion of Canada’s bitumen sandsmakes economic, environmental, and ethical sense.

The pipelines are politically linked because of these broad questions but also becauseof a political calculation from bitumen sands proponents: that at least one export corridormust be permitted, if not Keystone XL then perhaps Northern Gateway or something simi-lar.22 They also both illustrate tensions between fossil fuel producing jurisdictions intent onproducing as much oil as possible and exporting it widely and national governments whichhave at least notionally committed to aggressive decarbonization strategies compatible withthe 1.5–2.0 ˚C temperature targets in the Paris Agreement. Further contention is ongo-

9Canadian Press, How the Northern Gateway oil pipeline saga has played out so far.10Whittington and Campion-Smith, Conservatives approve Northern Gateway pipeline.11Payton, Northern Gateway pipeline approved with 209 conditions.12Omand, Environmental groups in federal appeal court to oppose Northern Gateway pipeline.13Williams, Environmentalists file suit over Trans Mountain pipeline, calls expansion a ‘death knell’ for

endangered species.14The Economist, The great pipeline battle.15CBC News, Kitimat, B.C., votes ‘no’ to Northern Gateway in plebiscite.16Morton, Ruling could affect more than Northern Gateway.17Proctor, Northern Gateway pipeline approval overturned.18The Georgia Straight, Premier Christy Clark issues statement on Trudeau cabinet’s decisions on Northern

Gateway and Kinder Morgan projects.19Fekete, Trudeau says rainforest no place for pipelines, as Enbridge eyes alternative endpoints for Gateway.20Tasker, Trudeau cabinet approves Trans Mountain, Line 3 pipelines, rejects Northern Gateway.21Stueck, Ottawa introduces law to ban oil tankers off northern B.C. coast.22See: Hoberg, “The battle over oil sands access to tidewater: a political risk analysis of pipeline

alternatives”.

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ing between pipeline proponents and indigenous peoples and communities, as well as withinan environmentalist movement torn between persuasive and confrontational tactics and un-certain about whether capitalist democracy as currently practiced can be reconciled withavoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

Looking at KXL and NGP media coverage helps reveal the activist networks working toresist both projects. North American anti-pipeline movements are notable for functioningsimultaneously at different scales while lacking formal hierarchies and even linkages betweenorganizations.23 Though not consistently mentioned in news coverage, broker organizationslike 350.org and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition are involved in opposing many pro-posed pipelines which are expected to increase total historical greenhouse gas emissions, andthey work deliberately to disperse strategies, tactics, and theories of change among otherorganizations. More conventional environmental organizations are more frequently inter-viewed in the media. Groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Councilplace more emphasis on threats to fresh water and marine spill risk. Partly in pursuit ofjournalistic balance, media coverage also reveals networks of pipeline proponents that includecorporations, chambers of commerce, and sympathetic politicians.

Competing frames are a central feature of the contention around energy policy in the U.S.and Canada.24,25,26,27,28 Pro-industry frames include the contribution of fossil fuel projectsto jobs and economic growth, as well as the benefits of fossil fuel use and sometimes thefossil fuel dependence our lifestyle creates. Central environmentalist frames emphasize localrisks from toxic contamination and the questionable safety record of the fossil fuel indus-try. They raise the broad context of climate change less often, particularly in terms ofdecarbonization and a finite global carbon budget. Perhaps the most integrated framingof climate activism is Naomi Klein’s notion of “Blockadia”: “a roving transnational conflictzone that is cropping up with increasing frequency and intensity wherever extractive projectsare attempting to dig and drill, whether for open-pit mines, or gas fracking, or tar sandsoil pipelines”.29,30 While the notion has appeal as a means for justifying mutual support be-tween geographically- and conceptually-disconnected progressive social movements, evidencethat such a coherent effort is emerging isn’t particularly supported by an analysis of recentNorth American pipeline controversies. Indigenous frames are more complex. Sometimes theanalysis is highly transactional, focusing on how it’s inappropriate to force pipeline risks onindigenous communities, but also sometimes stressing the right of these communities to allowpipelines when they perceive the benefits to be sufficient. In a broader and more philosoph-ical sense, indigenous perspectives raise issues like intergenerational justice, the long-termviability of “extractivist” economic models, and spiritual obligations to protect land and wa-

23For an exemplary example of the study of such climate activist networks through a variety of method-ologies, see: Hadden, Networks in Contention: The Divisive Politics of Climate Change.

24On framing in general, see: Snow and Benford, “Master frames and cycles of protest”.25Snow, Benford, et al., “Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization”.26Benford and Snow, “Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment”.27Goffman, Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience.28Capek, “The “environmental justice” frame: A conceptual discussion and an application”.29Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, p. 294–5.30See also: Bradshaw, “Blockadia rising: rowdy greens, direct action and the Keystone XL pipeline”.

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ter. One instructive account of resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rockexplains: “To categorise Standing Rock as anti-industry or solely an environmental protestis to misunderstand the context”.31 Media accounts of the Unist’ot’en camp in B.C. suggestthat resistance there is partly motivated by a similar perspective, as well as a determinationto assert First Nations sovereignty. Perhaps the greatest public relations accomplishment ofthose resisting the Dakota Access pipeline has been winning media acceptance of the ideaof themselves as “water protectors”.32 The framing is powerful both because it speaks toa universal value (water protection) and frames those involved as positively promoting anagenda rather than primarily as resisting in the face of someone else’s.

2 MethodologyInitially, I hoped to assemble a representative sample of media stories on each pipeline

using the Factiva and Canadian Newsstream Complete databases. Factiva is based on over32,000 global sources, including newspapers, magazines, and transcripts from television andradio. The Canadian Newsstream database includes full text from over 280 Canadian newssources, including the Globe & Mail, National Post, and CBC. In both cases, I restrictedresults to newspapers only. This sample was to be used to begin identifying the network ofactivist organizations, organizers, and brokers involved in resisting both pipelines, as wellas the common framings used by pipeline opponents and proponents. Limitations in thedatabases make this either impossible or extremely laborious as they both contain duplicates,tags like “editorial” are not always consistently applied, permanent links to search resultsare not provided, algorithms for sorting articles by “relevance” are proprietary black boxes,and the geographic boundaries of news sources to include in database queries cannot be setwith much confidence or flexibility.33 The Factiva relevance algorithm seems dominated byrecency, with top ranking articles for KXL all being from the last couple of months, despitethe long-running controversies about both projects. Strangely, the top 50 Factiva results forNGP include numerous articles going back to 2012, though somewhat surprisingly formerPrime Minister Stephen Harper wasn’t mentioned into 70 articles into the review.

Despite the limitations in the databases, summary statistics on media coverage aboutthe pipelines are in some ways revealing.

Because of the number of total results and the limitations of the databases, this paperwill not seek to comprehensively analyze the news database results for framing or activistnetworks. Rather, it will simply seek to establish the plausibility of undertaking such analysisbased on these databases by examining a small and non-representative subset of the availablecontent. To that end, I reviewed the top 50 results for “Keystone XL” and “NorthernGateway pipeline” in Factiva and Canadian Newsstream’s newspaper content, sorted by

31Campbell, ‘Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids’: Why Standing Rock is about much more thanoil.

32Iyuskin American Horse, ‘We are protectors, not protesters’: why I’m fighting the North Dakota pipeline.33I am grateful to the Jesse Carliner, the Political Science librarian at Robarts Library, for his help in

understanding the strengths and limitations of these tools.

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Table 1: Total database resultsSearch term Database Restrictions ResultsKeystone XL Factiva 2008–present; English 102706Northern Gateway pipeline Factiva 2006–present; English 25687Keystone XL Canadian Newsstream 2008–present; English 17734Northern Gateway pipeline Canadian Newsstream 2006–present; English 19488Keystone XL Factiva 2008–present; English; Newspapers only 42781Northern Gateway pipeline Factiva 2006–present; English; Newspapers only 11981Keystone XL Canadian Newsstream 2008–present; English; Newspapers only 14788Northern Gateway pipeline Canadian Newsstream 2006–present; English; Newspapers only 17067

their opaque “relevance” ranking.34 For each article, I recorded any anti-pipeline groups orindividuals referenced. For quoted activists, I noted which if any frames of analysis theyemphasized. I also noted any frames used by proponents or the article’s author. These weredocumented in three spreadsheets: one listing 273 individuals, another with 78 organizations,and one identifying 34 frames used in 161 articles.35

Beyond questions about what material is included in the Factiva and Canadian Newsstreamdatabases, some problems with the output from these systems complicates analysis. Factivafrequently outputs garbled text like:

bumped his target to $24 from $22 with an “utperform”ating. ”e expect Enerflexto outperform the broader OFS index

And:

”aris is a robust agreement but other countries looking at us and saying ‘hyshould we do anything then?’s a risk.

Both systems also produce anomalies because of diacritical marks and ‘smart’ quotations.This would complicate any effort at automated text analysis. In addition, because I did notindex at what time any particular individual or organization expressed support or oppositionfor KXL or NGP, this analysis misses cases where people switched from being proponentsto opponents and vice versa (for instance, Gitxsan hereditary chiefs who partnered withEnbridge in 2011 only to have the agreement fall apart subsequently).

The substantial corpus of journalism about KXL and NGP creates an opportunity forscholars to study climate and environmental activist and indigenous rights social movementsin action by identifying the networks of influence and support among them any by analyzingthe strategies through which they seek to shift elite and public opinion. By incorporatingevidence from multiple articles, this review allowed for information not included in one place

34Searching for only “Northern Gateway” produces irrelevant results like the Chinese city of Jiangsu’saspiration to be a northern gateway to Shanghai, or the “Northern Gateway masterplan” for commercialand residential development in Derbyshire.

35The sheets are available online: People, Organizations, Frames.

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to be linked after the fact: for instance, when individuals had affiliations not mentioned inall articles quoting them. Similarly, in some cases individuals or organizations are mentionedbut not clearly identified as pipeline proponents or opponents, meaning better informationabout their positions can be determined from an integrated analysis.

As opposed to my limited sample and three spreadsheets, it would be preferable tocreate a dynamic database with data on which articles make reference to which people,frames, and organizations and which can be configured to display the connections in anycombination. A custom graphical interface could significantly improve the rate of manualcategorization by providing the ability to simply click pre-identified frames to link them toan individual or article. Connections in the database could be presented in a variety ofways, from showing every article quoting an individual and the frames they used in eachto showing an organization, all its quoted spokespeople, and the media sources that havecovered it. It would also be preferable to use a larger sample of articles sorted by a lessopaque mechanism than “relevance”, or even to use automatic text processing tools to parsethrough the full set of articles referencing KXL and NGP. One challenge to any automatedapproach is that the context of statements made on behalf of individuals and organizationsprobably requires active human effort to identify; an automatic scan of articles would havea hard time working out which pipeline is being discussed (since articles tend to discussseveral, including projects other than KXL and NGP) and what frames are being employed.Some articles only peripherally mention the pipeline, or even contain only a link or referenceto a pipeline-related article.

3 FramesWith the important caveat that the set of articles examined was not representative,

we can look at the relative occurrence of different pro- and anti-pipeline framings, both interms of whole articles and in terms of the positions taken by individuals in all sampledmedia references. Most articles include at least some rationale for opposing or opposing thepipeline, as do many quotes from individuals, though perhaps a surprising number of mediareports simply state that one person or another supports or opposes the project withoutlisting any reasons.

At least four major frames have been emphasized by KXL and NGP proponents: jobs andeconomic prosperity, the benefits of fossil fuel use, and national unity and fairness betweenjurisdictions.

By far the most prominent framing used to discuss KXL and NGP is that of jobs andeconomic prosperity, frequently extended to include the consequences of those things fortax revenues. Virtually every figure quoted supporting either pipeline, from politicians toacademics to corporate proponents, makes the case that pipeline construction will createtemporary jobs and that new fossil fuel export capacity will fuel the Canadian economy.The U.S. State Department estimated 3,900 part-time construction jobs from building KXL,

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Table 2: All identified framesFrame list Pro or Anti Σ from people Σ in articles TotalAccess to new markets Pro 17 35 52Anti-capitalism/anti-corporation Anti 1 1 2Assumed inevitability of oil burning Pro 4 6 10Balance (economy and environment) Pro 3 1 4Canada-US relations Pro 13 12 25Canada’s geopolitical stability Pro 7 5 12Canadian oil price gap (anti-pipeline) Anti 0 2 2Canadian oil price gap (pro-pipeline) Pro 8 19 27Climate risk Anti 10 21 31Dedication to safety (pro-pipeline) Pro 14 24 38Ecosystem/species protection Anti 3 18 21Exports don’t improve energy security Anti 1 6 7Indigenous rights Anti 31 31 62Indigenous rights (pro-pipeline) Pro 13 14 27Intergenerational ethics Anti 1 2 3Intergenerational ethics (pro-pipeline) Pro 0 1 1Interprovincial issues/national unity Pro 8 19 27Jobs and economic growth Pro 51 61 112Jobs and prosperity from decarbonization Anti 1 4 5Marine spill risk Anti 10 24 34Oil dependence (anti-pipeline) Anti 1 1 2Oil dependence (pro-pipeline) Pro 7 6 13Opposition to eminent domain Anti 6 5 11Opposition to unrefined product export Anti 5 8 13Pipelines safer than transport alternatives Pro 3 8 11Risk to investor confidence Pro 0 3 3Risk to tourism and fisheries Anti 3 7 10Size of Canadian reserves (pro-pipeline) Pro 1 1 2Social license (anti-pipeline) Anti 6 2 8Threat to health Anti 0 1 1Threat to water Anti 20 36 56US energy independence Pro 10 17 27Would encourage oilsands development (anti-pipeline) Anti 10 19 29

with 35 people to run the pipeline subsequently.36,37,38 Enbridge claimed that NGP wouldcreate 3,000 construction jobs and 560 long-term jobs in B.C.39 Critics generally respondby arguing that the number of jobs created is exaggerated by proponents, or by arguingthat there is more employment in industries threatened by pipelines like fishing and tourism.Even those sympathetic to the case for new pipelines are sometimes critical of jobs as ajustification. In a memorable bit of satire, Andrew Leach, Associate Professor at the AlbertaSchool of Business, proposed facetiously that a 1,200 kilometre bucket brigade would createfour million permanent jobs plus “10 million indirect and induced jobs”, compared with “a

36The Economist, Fuelling anger.37The Economist, Back in the pipeline.38In a New York Times interview, Obama cited 2,000 temporary jobs and 50–100 permanent ones The

Economist, It’s hard to XL.39CBC News, Northern Gateway pipeline project: 6 things to know.

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Table 3: Top 8 pro- and anti-pipeline framesFrame list Pro or Anti Σ from people Σ in articles TotalJobs and economic growth Pro 51 61 112Access to new markets Pro 17 35 52Dedication to safety (pro-pipeline) Pro 14 24 38Canadian oil price gap (pro-pipeline) Pro 8 19 27Indigenous rights (pro-pipeline) Pro 13 14 27Interprovincial issues/national unity Pro 8 19 27US energy independence Pro 10 17 27Canada-US relations Pro 13 12 25Indigenous rights Anti 31 31 62Threat to water Anti 20 36 56Marine spill risk Anti 10 24 34Climate risk Anti 10 21 31Would encourage oilsands development (anti-pipeline) Anti 10 19 29Ecosystem/species protection Anti 3 18 21Opposition to unrefined product export Anti 5 8 13Opposition to eminent domain Anti 6 5 11

few hundred” projected for NGP.40 Economists are quicker than politicians to recognize thatjobs in themselves are of little benefit if the activity being undertaken isn’t valuable, bringingus to questions about how well served Canada will be by new fossil infrastructure.

A core justification for “Oil Sands Access to Tidewater” is the development of new mar-kets for Canadian bitumen sands production, which might lead to a reduction in the pricepenalty for “Western Canadian Select” heavy crude oil compared with other benchmarkoil classifications. This argument gets intertwined in complex ways with assertions aboutCanada as a geopolitically stable oil supplier to the U.S. and thus a contributor to U.S. “en-ergy security” or “energy independence”. At times, Canadian politicians used the prospectof non-U.S. exports as a kind of rhetorical cudgel to try to pressure the Obama administra-tion to approve KXL, arguing that the U.S. will otherwise lose the oil which the pipelinewould carry to other buyers, like China. Other Canadians stress the risks associated withhaving the U.S. as the dominant buyer of Canadian oil, arguing that this depresses the priceper barrel which Canadian firms earn and creates the danger that Canadian prosperity willbe excessively tied to the United States, or that the explosion in oil and gas output fromfracking across the U.S. will constrain the growth of the comparatively high-cost bitumensands.

When pipeline proponents stress the supposedly exceptional and effective safety measuresto be incorporated into NGP and KXL, they are seeking to rebut prominent concerns frompipeline opponents about toxic contamination and other damage from pipeline ruptures andmarine spills. It’s a challenging argument to make, regardless of the number of valves andcomputer monitoring systems deployed, given how many pipeline ruptures and marine spillsare on the public record in Canada and the U.S. and the emphasis placed upon them bypipeline opponents and the media. Public skepticism about corporate safety claims has alsobeen exacerbated by public relations failures, such as when Enbridge deleted 1,000 square

40Leach, Who needs pipelines, the Oil Bucket Brigade is ready.

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kilometres of islands from a video description of the NGP tanker route through the DouglasChannel.41 Nonetheless, the frequency with which safety claims are emphasized demonstrateshow pipeline proponents perceive a need for anticipatory rebuttal in this domain. The mainrhetorical strategy of those employing the safety frame is to first assume that the oil in thebitumen sands will be extracted and burned regardless of whether any particular pipeline isbuilt; then, they present the transport scenarios in terms of relative risk, usually comparedwith oil by rail.

Two other frequently-deployed frames from pipeline proponents are the benefits we de-rive from fossil fuels (and our collective dependence upon them) and the national unityimplications of pipeline construction. In the general conversation about climate change,those opposed to rapid decarbonization through the phase-out of fossil fuels often emphasizethe material benefits — from staple foods and inexpensive transport to luxury products —associated with fossil fuel use, and sometimes argue that a prosperous or tolerable life isotherwise impossible.42 Both of these general arguments are present in media about KXLand NGP, and are comparatively rarely rebutted with arguments about how climate-safeforms of energy may provide an alternative or even a superior basis for enduring materialprosperity. The concept of pipeline construction as patriotic duty is epitomized in then-natural resources minister Joe Oliver’s famously intemperate 2012 open letter in which heaccused “environmental and other radical groups” of “threaten[ing] to hijack our regulatorysystem to achieve their radical ideological agenda” and “use funding from foreign specialinterest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest”.43 A similar sentimentwas expressed more recently about opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline by Albertapremier Rachel Notley, who emphasized that “there are no tools available for a province tooverturn or otherwise block a federal government decision to approve a project that is inthe larger national interest”, equating such an action with having “one province or even oneregion … hold hostage the economy of another province or, in this case, the economy of ourentire country”.44 Policy makers in countries existentially threatened by fossil fuel-driven sealevel rise may have a different interpretation of who is whose hostage.

A key frame employed by pipeline proponents in the Trudeau government is “balance” be-tween economic development and environmental protection. In December 2015, the Speechfrom the Throne from the 42nd Parliament argued: “a clean environment and a strongeconomy go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other”.45 The Prime Minis-ter, Minister of the Environment, and others have argued that by taking steps to mitigateCanada’s contribution to climate change, we can justify further bitumen sands expansion.For reasons that exceed the scope of this paper, this position is unconvincing.46 Nonetheless,it aligns with a central doctrine of journalism — ‘telling both sides of the story’ — whichcarries the danger of false equivalence. The fact that one is taking some sort of precau-

41Lavoie, Enbridge depiction of clear tanker route sparks outrage.42See: Ilnyckyj, Canadian Climate Change Policy from a Climate Ethics Perspective, p. 10–13.43Oliver, An open letter from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.44Tait and Hunter, No B.C. government has right to block Trans Mountain pipeline expansion: Notley.45Government of Canada, Making Real Change Happen.46See: Ilnyckyj, Canadian Climate Change Policy from a Climate Ethics Perspective.

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tionary action (say, opening a large umbrella) may not balance a choice like jumping offa five story building. Similarly, incremental actions to reduce Canadian emissions belowa business-as-usual trajectory do little to respond to concerns about the consequences ofCanada’s massive fossil fuel production, use, and export. When Prime Minister Trudeauargued that “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave themthere” he was either undermining the whole premise of the 2016 Paris Agreement (whichrelies on mutual restraint of this kind from all countries) or indirectly asserting that somesort of technological or geoengineering response will emerge to negate the consequences ofthose emissions.47,48,49

The major frames emphasized by pipeline opponents include local risks of toxic contam-ination in land and water, the incompatibility of new fossil fuel infrastructure with climatechange mitigation efforts, the assertion of local land rights and opposition to eminent domain,and the violation of indigenous rights.

Right from the outset, the relative frequency of frame use reveals a puzzle: referencesto climate change and especially to society-wide decarbonization and the intergenerationalimpacts of fossil fuels are comparatively infrequent in media reports and the arguments ofactivists. Why then have anti-pipeline struggles become so much more prominent and con-tentious in recent years? If anything, we might expect the risks of pipeline ruptures andmarine spills to be decreasing with improved monitoring systems and materials. Beforelooking at various anti-pipeline frames in more detail, three answers seem plausible. First,while local concerns may have more emotional relevance and hold more interest for mediaoutlets, high-level decision makers may now have climate change as a background concern,heightening the controversy about bitumen sands pipelines in particular. Second, the anti-pipeline movement is part of an evolving set of social movements, including climate justice,and brokers within these movements are diffusing strategies, tactics, and theories of changewhich are strengthening local anti-pipeline efforts. Third, particularly in Canada, indigenousresurgence is an increasingly potent political force. Patterns of fossil fuel production, trans-port, and use are closely linked to extractivist and colonial mindsets and one of the morepolitically and economically salient manifestations of a growing indigenous rights movementis demand for control over and potentially an ability to veto new fossil fuel development.

One challenge to the “Blockadia” framing is that opposition to pipeline projects maybe motivated more by local concerns than by the global threat of climate change. In 2012,Andrew Barton drove the proposed pipeline route from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat,B.C.50 Among pipeline opponents, he found considerable concern about a pipeline spill onland or maritime tanker spill, but little concern about climate change. Often the foremostconcern of those opposed to KXL and NGP has been local toxic contamination from pipelineleaks, or tanker spills in the case of NGP.51 KXL and NGP would carry diluted bitumen

47CBC News, Trudeau: ’No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave themthere’.

48On geoengineering, see: Gardiner, “Is “Arming the Future” with Geoengineering Really the LesserEvil? Some Doubts About the Ethics of Intentionally Manipulating the Climate System”.

49Keith, A Case for Climate Engineering.50Barton, Place and Pipelines: The Northern Gateway Pipeline and our Home Places.51While a major purpose of KXL would be refining diluted bitumen on the U.S. Gulf Coast for further

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as opposed to conventional crude oil, and many commentators assert that this is a morecorrosive fluid correspondingly more likely to cause pipeline ruptures and that it causes moreenduring ecological damage when spilled. The 2010 diluted bitumen spill into the KalamazooRiver has been both a source of motivation for anti-pipeline volunteers and organizers anda point frequently raised in the media by pipeline opponents.52 Local risks are also centralto arguments about a risk-benefit disjuncture with pipelines, where their operation clearlybenefits producers and consumers at either end while not necessarily compensating thoseliving beside the pipe for the risks they face as a consequence. In the cases of NGP and KXL,adjacent areas with heightened sensitivity to environmental damage and unusual economicand ecological importance have played a role in public debate and the deliberations of policymakers. For NGP, the rugged coastline of British Columbia, which has so much importancefor the tourism industry and the self-perception of British Columbians, is frequently held upas something precious and imperilled by pipeline development. So too are B.C.’s commercialfishery and seafood resources that have sustained indigenous communities for millennia. Inthe U.S., perhaps the most vehement opposition to KXL arose from concern about the threatto the Sandhills of Nebraska, as well as the massive Ogallala Aquifer which is a key freshwatersource for eight states. In 2011, Dave Heineman, Republican governor of Nebraska, calledfor the pipeline to be re-routed around the aquifer.53

While certainly present, climate risks associated with fossil fuel development are lessemphasized in media coverage. The Toronto Star article “How Canada’s pipeline splitsAmerica” notes how “not once has a single person we have encountered” mentioned climatechange, until they meet with Jane Kleeb in Newport, Nebraska.54 Certainly, threats tolocal water are the most documented concern of KXL and NGP opponents, despite howconcern about climate change is the central mobilizing force for groups like 350.org. Ingeneral, those calling for more energetic action in the face of climate change employ scientific,numerical, and climate justice frames.55 A numerical framing emphasizes factors like the 1.5–2 ˚C temperature target from the Paris Agreement, estimates of safe atmospheric carbondioxide (CO2) concentrations like 350 parts per million, and the comparison between totalglobal fossil fuel reserves and a safe global carbon budget.56 Scientific framing emphasizesevidence, data, the scientific process of theory evaluation, and the use of historical evidenceand forward-looking models to try to predict future impacts. The climate justice frame —which is highly prominent in the internal deliberations of climate and other social justiceactivists — was essentially absent from the news stories examined here.

Perhaps the most extreme form of climate change framing ever used can be found inwriting by former NASA climatologist James Hansen, generally considered to be one of themost important scientists to warn policy makers and the general public about climate change.In his 2010 book, he argued:

export via tanker, the issue of tanker spills never arose in the selected media coverage on KXL, while it wasfeatured prominently in NGP coverage.

52See: Barton, Place and Pipelines: The Northern Gateway Pipeline and our Home Places, p. 35.53Broder and Frosch, U.S. Delays Decision on Pipeline Until After Election.54Potter, Keystone XL: How Canada’s pipeline splits the U.S..55See: Schittecatte, “The effects of framing on support for political action on climate change”.56See: McKibben, Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.

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After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runawaygreenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently?While that is difficult to say based on present information, I’ve come to concludethat if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance wewill initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale,I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.57

Hansen called KXL a “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet” and said exploit-ing Canada’s bitumen sands would be “game over for the climate”.58,59,60 In 2013, Hansenclarified, regarding the Venus scenario, that what he described in his book would be “a con-sequence of burning all fossil fuels over a period of several centuries, with warming furtheramplified by ignition of PETM-like hyperthermal warming” and that “it is not an exaggera-tion to suggest, based on best available scientific evidence, that burning all fossil fuels couldresult in the planet being not only ice-free but human-free”.61 In a less severe scenario wherewe “we continue business-as-usual fossil fuel burning”, he expects “an extended phase of ex-treme climate chaos”.62 Anti-KXL activists including 350.org founder Bill McKibben widelyemphasized the “game over” line in the media, while citing Hansen’s scientific credibility andhistory of raising concerns about climate change which subsequently proved justified.63,64

“Game Over” has appeared on anti-KXL banners, including some held by protestors beingarrested in the 2011 civil disobedience outside the White House. Hansen was also quotedin the June 2011 email in which McKibben, Maude Barlow, Naomi Klein, David Suzuki,and Hansen himself called for people to sign up for the White House action.65 In additionto questions about which scenarios are scientifically plausible, Hansen’s comments also raisequestions about how scientists ought to communicate, and particularly how they should en-gage with the difficulty climate change can have in generating an emotional response becauseit seems distantly situated in space and time. If people are making wrong policy decisionsbecause climate change isn’t sufficiently morally salient, does that justify the use of suchevocative and emotionally-charged scenarios? Or does the risk that such claims will laterappear hyperbolic — or that presenting the problem in such stark terms will yield paralysisrather than action — mean that scientists would be better off sticking to more subdued proseof the sort used in the authoritative assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change?

Based on this sample of media reports, the central message of organizations like 350.org57Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last

Chance to Save Humanity, p. 236.58McGowan, NASA’s Hansen Explains Decision to Join Keystone Pipeline Protests.59Hansen, Game Over for the Climate.60A Factiva search for the phrase “game over” and the terms “climate” and “Hansen” yields 417 results,

including articles about NGP and KXL.61Hansen, Making Things Clearer: Exaggeration, Jumping the Gun, and The Venus Syndrome.62Ibid., p. 6.63Stuart, Bill McKibben on Obama’s Keystone XL Rejection: ‘The Tide Is Starting to Turn’.64See also: Wilford, His Bold Statement Transforms the Debate On Greenhouse Effect.65McKibben, Environmental Leaders Call For Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Tar Sands

Pipeline.

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has not been widely discussed. Indeed, the organization itself gets surprisingly little mentiongiven its major coordinating role in the most visible protests against KXL. The very name ofthe organization is meant to draw attention to the safe upper limit for CO2 concentration inthe atmosphere, in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Such a stabilizationtarget implies a limited global carbon budget incompatible with developing and burningmost of the world’s remaining fossil fuels, as well as rapid decarbonization pathways foradvanced economies like Canada’s.66 In such a scenario, further bitumen sands developmentloses its financial justification, since the rational way to plan a rapid decarbonization sce-nario involves using the least costly and environmentally damaging fraction of the world’sremaining fossil fuels, not those with exceptionally high costs of production and levels of as-sociated environmental harm. While convincing from a scientific and economic perspective,this frame has little visibility in the contemporary Canadian and U.S. newspaper discourseson pipelines.

A variation on locally-motivated opposition is the form not based on the risk of spillsper se, but by arguing that building pipelines like KXL is an abuse of the eminent domainpowers of the Canadian and U.S. governments. David Daniel, a landowner in Texas, pursuedthis claim in court and also built a network of treehouses occupied by Tar Sands Blockadeactivists.67 The eminent domain argument is also associated with Nebraska-based anti-KXLactivist Jane Kleeb who has criticized the effectiveness of framing climate change as a sci-entific issue: “One thing the climate organizations don’t get is that the scientific numbersdon’t move people … People here care about their neighbors”.68 While the eminent domainconcern is certainly not divorced from concerns about toxic local pollution, it carries specialemotional relevance for landowners not generally involved in environmental activism. It alsodraws some people who are skeptical or even hostile toward environmentalism and envi-ronmental organizations into anti-pipeline fights. A framing focused on eminent domain isarguably somewhat ironic, or at least perplexing, as it emphasizes the defence of a legal fiction(private property rights as conditionally recognized by governments) while de-emphasizingreal physical phenomena like the changing temperature of the planet. Nevertheless, in thecontext of American politics where a Lockean notion of the inherent justifiability of propertyrights remains widely accepted, this framing has political relevance in part because it drawscitizens who are not normally supporters of progressive parties into anti-pipeline efforts.

Arguments made by indigenous individuals and groups draw from both pro- and anti-pipeline framings, with some emphasizing economic opportunity and the moral importanceof poverty reduction and others stressing intergenerational responsibility and an obligationto protect the land and water. A Working Group on Natural Resource Development es-tablished by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former National Chief of the Assembly ofFirst Nations Shawn Atleo argued that resource development provides an “unprecedentedopportunity exists for all Canadians, industry and governments to partner with First Na-tions in ways that truly unleash economic growth while incorporating socially responsible

66See: Ilnyckyj, Canadian Climate Change Policy from a Climate Ethics Perspective, p. 8–19.67Elbein, Jane Kleeb vs. the Keystone Pipeline.68Ibid.

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approaches to natural resource development”.69,70 In contrast, the Treaty Alliance AgainstTar Sands Expansion argues that bitumen sands transport “threaten[s] many IndigenousNations’ territories, waterways, shores and communities with the very real risk of toxic andhazardous oil spills”; that expansion of the bitumen sands poisons the adjacent and down-stream lands, waters, and air; and that bitumen sands expansion “unquestionably fuel[s]catastrophic climate change [which] has already started to endanger our peoples’ way of lifeand now threatens our very survival”.71 Indigenous responses to pipeline setbacks have alsodiffered substantially. For example, while it was broadly celebrated by environmental andindigenous activists, Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement, Chief ElmerDerrick of the Gitxsan Nation, and Dale Swampy of the Samson Cree Nation spoke to themedia about their disappointment about the NGP project’s cancellation.72

4 NetworksA challenge in studying environmental activism and pipeline resistance as social move-

ments is the frequent absence of formal linkages or hierarchies between activist organiza-tions.73,74,75,76,77,78 Particularly for low-staff, low-resource organizations with a focus on wildgrowth such as 350.org, nobody even maintains detailed records on the initiatives of localaffiliates, much less seeks to direct their behaviour in an ongoing manner. Activist networksalso overlap between issues, and some of the key sources of internal contention among envi-ronmental and climate change activism concern questions of allyship and intersectionality:which causes and organizations should activists support, and on the basis of what normativeand strategic considerations?

Since centralized sources of information on anti-KXL and anti-NGP activism are generallyunavailable, media coverage provides one starting point for building a network analysis of themovements. Media accounts almost never provide details of coordination or collaborationbetween activist groups, except when sets of organizations are described as being part ofdiscrete joint efforts like lawsuits. Nonetheless, they provide some starting points for anetwork analysis of the pipeline resistance movement by identifying active organizations and

69Working Group on Natural Resource Development, First Nations and Natural Resource Development:Advancing Positive, Impactful Change, p. 1.

70McCarthy, Resource revenues could lift some First Nations out of poverty, report urges.71Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion.72Cattaneo, ‘We are very disappointed’: Loss of Northern Gateway devastating for many First Nations,

chiefs say.73On the study of networks in the study of politics, see: Davis et al., Social movements and organization

theory.74Hadden, “Explaining variation in transnational climate change activism: The role of inter-movement

spillover”.75Klandermans and Oegema, “Potentials, networks, motivations, and barriers: Steps towards participation

in social movements”.76McAdam and Boudet, Putting social movements in their place: Explaining opposition to energy projects

in the United States, 2000–2005.77Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism.78Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics.

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spokespeople, providing a starting point for broadening research effort. If we imagine activistnetworks as a spiderweb, news stories don’t reveal much about connecting threads but can beused to identify the vertices where they connect. Media reports may also partly substitutefor institutional memory when studying informal organizations with a rapid turnover ofvolunteers, allowing volunteers and organizers from non-overlapping eras to be identified,further researched, and perhaps interviewed.

The first obvious limitation in using media databases for a network analysis of anti-pipeline activism — demonstrated by the summary statistics above — is the vastness ofthe media coverage on these two pipelines, to say nothing of the broader discussion of cli-mate change and energy policy. While access to news databases like Factiva and CanadianNewsstream Complete provides a useful starting point, they have at least three importantflaws. First, they lack tools for identifying and addressing duplication; an article from a na-tional news agency like the Canadian Press may appear many times in search results due tosyndication, and sometimes nearly identical articles are released with different headlines bydifferent news sources. Second, while the ability to narrow down results by article type (suchas editorials), geographical region, or specific publication do exist, the tagging that servesthese functions isn’t sufficiently standardized to yield confidence that everything appropriatehas been included and everything appropriate excluded. Third, while both services usefullyallow for as many articles as are shown on one page of results to be downloaded, neither offersa straightforward mechanism for downloading the full text of all articles identified througha search. Those seeking to apply techniques like computational text analysis or data miningmay require either laborious manual access and downloading or the development of ‘webscraping’ software which may conflict with the services’ terms of use.

These barriers impede efforts to draw strong conclusions about the relative amounts ofnews coverage on different topics, or to assemble a representative sample of coverage onany particular topic. These barriers may be less of an impediment to those seeking to usenews databases as an input to network analysis than to those whose intention is a moresubstantive analysis of the content of the articles. Identifying anti-pipeline individuals andorganizations does not require a representative sample or an exhaustive review.

5 Conclusion and implicationsIn a political context where the comfortable centrist position is that meaningful climate

change action can be reconciled with new fossil fuel development (as argued by Obama andTrudeau), anti-pipeline movements represent an important normative and practical challengeto the current North American political leadership. Efforts from both pipeline proponentsand opponents have sought to craft emotionally evocative narratives, including by presentingtheir positions as ‘grassroots’ and representative of ordinary people, as well as throughthe theatrical dimensions of protest, non-violent direct action, and civil disobedience. It’splausible that the determination of activists to defy the U.S. Park Police and continueprotesting outside the White House until arrested in the hot summer of 2011 first crediblysignalled what a battle would be fought over KXL.

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The various kinds of framing used in the media to describe the arguments for and againstpipeline projects can be considered and interpreted in a range of ways, including the sortof crude numerical comparison undertaken above. Going beyond that, it would be possi-ble to look with much more detail about cycles of claims and counterclaims: for instance,contestation of job creation estimates or safety assertions from pipeline proponents, or ofalleged threats to ecosystems or fisheries by opponents.79 It would also be desirable to gaina greater understanding of what effect media coverage actually has on the worldview andpolitical preferences of decision makers and the general public. When seeking to understandthe media’s role in North American climate change and energy politics, it’s notable thatnews outlets share one of the main failings of the general public and decision makers whenit comes to climate and energy policy making — an excessive focus on the visible and theimmediate. This likely helps to explain why the broad decarbonization framing espoused by350.org is not well represented in media accounts.

In itself, a review of news stories about KXL and NGP tells us little about the networksof opposition operating against the projects. It allows for the identification of organizationsthat have taken sufficiently newsworthy actions to be noticed, whether those are acts of civildisobedience or non-violent direct action, or the filing of lawsuits. It also allows for theidentification of individual spokespeople for both proponent and opponent organizations,and for some cataloguing of the means of persuasion being employed by each. If the moti-vation is not to immediately generate a comprehensive understanding but rather to developleads which can be followed then perhaps a methodology based around media analysis cancontribute usefully to broader projects seeking to understand pipeline resistance and thebroader contentious politics of climate change.

In summation, the analysis of media reports about contested fossil fuel infrastructurecan have value if you don’t expect too much. By itself it cannot provide a comprehensiveor representative account of networks of anti-pipeline organizations or individuals, but itcan provide data points to begin populating that set by other means. Since framing ef-forts undertaken by both infrastructure proponents and opponents are specifically intendedto influence public opinion partly through the mechanism of the media, analysis of newsstories alone can provide more comprehensive information about framing than about net-works. Major challenges exist in undertaking framing or network analysis of large numbersof media reports, first, in putting the raw material from news databases into a format thatcan be interpreted through automatic tools and, second, in designing tools that can go be-yond tracking keywords to identifying lines or argumentation like ‘jobs’ or ‘risk to fisheries’.Nonetheless, the sheer bulk of media reporting on pipelines and pipeline resistance suggeststhat efforts of that sort may be necessary for those seeking to understand activist efforts andoutcomes at national and international scales and multi-year timespans.

79In June 2014, Trudeau claimed: “The Northern Gateway Pipeline threatens not only the BritishColumbia coastal economy but the jobs of thousands of people who live on the ocean”. Judd, Justin Trudeausays if he becomes PM, Northern Gateway Pipeline will not happen.

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